She is a daughter of architect and restorer Jan Zachwatowicz and Maria Chodźko h. Kościesza, and wife of film director Andrzej Wajda.

[2] In 1958, she made her own debut as a scenographer in Marin Držić's Rzymska kurtyzana on the stage of Teatr Zagłębia in Sosnowiec.

There, she designed a scenography to Witold Gombrowicz's The Marriage (Polish: Ślub) directed by Jerzy Jarocki.

In The Old Theatre, she made set designs to several performances directed by Konrad Swinarski, i.e.: Zygmunt Krasiński's The Un-Divine Comedy (1965; Polish: Nie-Boska Komedia), William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1970) and to plays directed by Andrzej Wajda: Stanisław Wyspiański's November Night (1974; Polish: Noc listopadowa), Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1984), and William Shakespeare's Hamlet IV (1989).

[2] From 1958 to the 1970s, Zachwatowicz was an actress of Kraków's Piwnica pod Baranami, where she created a legendary portrait of "the first naive" (Polish: pierwsza naiwna).